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Redalyc.The Republic in Crisis and Future Possibilities Ciência & Saúde Coletiva ISSN: 1413-8123 [email protected] Associação Brasileira de Pós-Graduação em Saúde Coletiva Brasil Domingues, José Maurício The republic in crisis and future possibilities Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, vol. 22, núm. 6, junio, 2017, pp. 1747-1758 Associação Brasileira de Pós-Graduação em Saúde Coletiva Rio de Janeiro, Brasil Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=63051208002 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative DOI: 10.1590/1413-81232017226.02472017 1747 The republic in crisis and future possibilities DEBATE José Maurício Domingues 1 Abstract This text gives a brief reconstruction of the process of impeachment of Brazil’s Presi- dent Dilma Rousseff, which was a ‘coup’ effected through parliament, and situates it at the end of three periods of politics in the Brazilian republic: the first, broader, and democratizing; the second, the age of the PT (Workers’ Party) as the force with the hegemony on the left; and the third, shorter, the cycle of its governments. Together, these phases constitute a crisis of the republic, although not a rupture of the country’s institutional structure, nor a ‘State of Exception’. The paper puts forward three main issues: the developmentalist project implemented by the governments of the PT, in alliance with Brazil’s construction companies; the role of the judiciary, and in particular of ‘Oper- ation Carwash’; and the conflict-beset relation- ship between the new evangelical churches and the LGBT social movements. The essay concludes with an assessment of the defeat and isolation of the left at this moment, and also suggests that democracy, in particular, could be the kernel of a renewed project of the left. Key words Political cycles, Impeachment, Left, democracy, Development 1 Centro de Estudos Estratégicos, Fiocruz. Av. Brasil 4036/10º, Manguinhos. 21040-361 Rio de Janeiro RJ Brasil. [email protected] 1748 Domingues JM Isolation and impeachment her adversary from the PSDB party. Thus, she lost a considerable part of the social base that Brazil is at present immersed in one of the most elected her. Finally, she had also to contend with serious crises of its history. A long cycle of de- the permanent damage produced by ‘Operation mocratization, beginning in the 1970s with the Carwash’, which located a vast scheme of cor- struggle against the military dictatorship that ruption in Petrobras – the national oil company started in 1964, came to a close – accompanied by and an icon of Brazilian development – during the end of a cycle in which the uncontested hege- the administrations of the PT, in which the party mony of the Brazilian left was held by the Work- participated, together with the PMBD of Temer, ers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores - PT), and and especially the Partido Popular (PP – of the has come to the end of its electoral cycle, with the center-right), although part of the left argue that impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. The there was a selectivity in the investigations. economy is going badly, and the country is now The event that sealed the fate of the Rousseff making retrograde steps1-3. government, bringing the PT cycle to an end, Dilma Rousseff, politically unskilled – espe- was a parliamentary coup. The country is now cially compared to her mentor Luiz Inácio Lula disturbed, by an impeachment process that was da Silva – made innumerable errors during her clothed in legality, but which a significant part of periods in government. The effect was to alienate the population regard as illegitimate. On the oth- most of society, in particular the middle classes er hand it is true that the majority of the popula- (doctors, scientists, a large part of the judicia- tion did support it (although, also, without any ry), and also of the ascending poorer classes, as affection for the Vice-president, Michel Temer, of well as the fact that she and the PT found them- the PMDB, who took over as President). There selves, at the end, facing their principal allies as was, however, no ‘rupture of the country’s insti- opponents: initially the Brazilian Socialist Party tutional fabric’, and the impeachment went ahead (Partido Socialista Brasileiro– PSB), and later the along exactly the same lines as the case which had Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (Partido previously deposed President Fernando Collor do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro – PMDB). de Mello in the 1990s – who was even more un- Many people still argue that, from the societal popular, and politically isolated at the end of his point of view, the central problem was to have government. The proceedings against Collor were based the project of the PT on consumption, thus in part what provided legitimacy for their recent preventing politicization of the rising poorer sec- repetition. As a parliamentary coup, the impeach- tors. Others, on the contrary, complain about the ment is in no way similar to nor compares with massive demonstrations of 2013, in which thou- the military coup of 1964, nor the ‘regime of ex- sands of young people from all over the country ception’, as some would like to argue, nor even spread into the streets, with a very fluid range of with any adequate definition of a ‘coup-d’état’. discontents and demands. These analysts under- Nor should it be seen as a process of atavistic stand those demonstrations to have been in op- throwback for Brazil – in which democracy is position to Rousseff and the PT – in this author’s unable to develop due to a perverse and peculiar opinion this point of view tends to indicate a cer- historic inheritance. In reality, the regime of accu- tain political ‘autism’ on the part of the PT. mulation that is capitalism is at present polarized, The fact is that Rousseff and the PT did not inequalities are increasing and the welfare state is in reality succeed in giving responses to a con- receding where it was put in place – all over the text that was both intricate and challenging. As world, democracy is being restricted. a result they lost the support of agents that place But this did not mean that the impeachment themselves in the center of the political spectrum, process was not traumatic. It was, apart from allowing them to incline toward the right. As if anything else, initially conducted by Eduardo this were not enough, the situation of the Bra- Cunha, Chair of the lower house of Congress, and zilian economy was worsening, due to the global a sinister figure: he was removed from office after economic situation, and also to the mistakes that doing the dirty work that was expected of him, the President herself made in her first period of and finished up being imprisoned on suspicions office. Further, having run a campaign that polar- of corruption, which then expanded to include ized the political debate, positioning herself more obstruction of justice, and other issues. Added to to the left than she had previously, even before this is the phenomenon that does not escape the taking office in her second government Rousseff population’s observation, that a large part of the adopted the adjustment policies of Aécio Neves, motivation for the impeachment was the desire 1749 Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, 22(6):1747-1758, 2017 22(6):1747-1758, Coletiva, & Saúde Ciência to put a brake on Operation Carwash before it composition of the present leadership contin- reached and, more destructively and more deep- ue to be visible in various dimensions, with the ly, overwhelmed politicians of the PMDB, the threat of retrograde movements in terms of civi- PSDB and other groupings. One of the basic ob- lization hanging in the air. Clearly, this has to do jectives of the coup against Rousseff – sacrificing with Brazil’s current situation of economic dif- the PT – was, for many political agents, in fact the ficulty and stress, but it goes a lot further than need to escape justice, and indeed prison, and the that. The corruption and the illegitimacy of the agenda of the neoliberals joined up with this as a political system are visible, and are demoralizing. secondary goal, even though it was a priority for On the other hand there is a social energy that the leaders of Brazilian business, and for interna- seeks ways to express itself in the contrary di- tional capital. rection, without yet having found where to flow These are the basic outlines of the current and develop itself fully. Some people suggest that political context. However, the problems are cer- in the present situation one is seeing a terminal tainly much deeper. To start with, the forces of crisis of the ‘New Republic’. This is an exagger- the center-right and the right have nothing to ation. The Republic’s institutions and indeed its offer other than a resumption of a more pitiless horizon of imagination and of rights remain, economic neoliberalism and a more restrict- but there is without doubt a crisis of the republic ed social liberalism (based on politics focused which we need to recognize could, unfortunately, for the poorest people in the population). The be overcome by a move in a frankly anti-popu- Temer government and its PMDB party un- lar direction. It is worth noting that the Brazilian til recently were striving to avoid adoption of a crisis and the debacle of the PT party are taking hard adjustment and embrace of that neoliberal place in a context of general attrition of the left agenda (initially establishing limits on spending in Latin America.
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